Albany Times Union

He was a native of Kutno, Poland, where his father, Erazm, was a Polish army officer and, prior to the outbreak of World War II, police commissioner in Bielsk Podlaski in Eastern Poland.

Ostrowidzki and his family survived the Nazi and Soviet occupations during and after World War II before he escaped to Sweden in 1947 and then to England where he attended high school and Kings College in London.

The family immigrated to the U.S. in 1950 and settled in the Albany area.